Figure 1 allows a comparative analysis about the income share gathered by the richest 1% in OECD countries (2005). According to this data, which is based on pre-tax income, the United States richest 1% gather 17.4% of the country’s income. The United Kingdom has the second higher result among the OECD countries analyzed in this figure: 14.3%. In Portugal this income distribution measure is 9.8%.

Figure 2 shows the evolution of income distribution in Portugal between 1976 and 2005, namely the share of income gathered by the richest quantiles. Looking at this figure it can be seen that the concentration of income among the richest quantiles got deeper during this period. Between 1976 and 1982 the income concentration levels decreased. But since 1989 onwards the share of income possessed by the richest subgroups of the population in Portugal increased steadily.

In 1976 the richest 0.1% gathered 1.3% of the country’s income, but in 2005 this value was up to 2.5%. This evolution is from: 5.0% to 6.4% among the richest 0.5%, 7.9% to 9.8% among the richest 1%, 21.1% to 26.0% among the richest 5%, and 31.7% to 38.3% among the richest 10%.